Turn Your Salty Ferments Into Seasonings

Have you ever made a batch of kimchi or kraut that just came out too salty? Maybe you changed measuring spoons, switched brands of salt or followed a new recipe written by someone who just doesn’t share your taste preferences. That always bums me out. There are ways to avoid it (always use the same salt and weigh rather than measure, never switch measuring spoons, etc), but sometimes it just happens. It’s not the end of the world, either. Most overly salted things can be served in small portions with larger portions of unsalted food (rice/grains, salad, eggs, etc) and you’ll never notice. You can also mix in some fresh (unsalted) veggies and let it ferment for another few days to a week. The texture will be uneven, but the saltiness will be diminished.

My new favorite thing to do with over-salted ferments is to turn them into seasoning. Lots of people dehydrate their fermented vegetables and you can get a nice crispy snack out of them that way. There are a couple things I don’t love about dehydrated ferments, though. First, and this may just be a personal thing, I would rather just eat my ferments hydrated most of the time, so it’s not really worth the effort for me. Secondly, the vegetables are incredibly salty once you’ve sucked out the balancing and bulking water element. That’s actually what gave me this idea. If they’re already going to be salty, why not use them as you would salt?

Space the fermented vegetables evenly on the dehydrator trays and try to keep like sized pieces on the same tray when possible.

I definitely do this with ferments that have a perfect salt level. It’s still fun and definitely still tasty. It also works well for ferments that have gone a bit soft in the back of the fridge. My very favorite version of this is the one pictured; the one I make with pesto-chi. But there are no bad choices here. Krauts of all kinds, kimchis and pickles of all varieties lend themselves to this process.

If you dehydrate below 110°F (43.3° C), you’ll keep the probiotic bacteria alive (although they won’t be active until the have access to some liquid again). If not, you’ll just be making something super tasty to sprinkle over pasta and soup or use as a meat rub.

Pat kimchi pieces dry. For sauerkraut, I spread it thin or make little clumps that crisp up nicely.

Sauerkraut or Kimchi Spice Recipe

Yield: 1/2 cup seasoning powder

If you don’t have a dehydrator, the oven on its lowest temperature setting works just fine. On my oven the lowest setting is 170°F (76.7°C), which definitely kills the lactic acid bacteria. Just spread the pieces out evenly on parchment paper or silpat on your favorite cookie sheets. At 170, they’re done at about 2 hours. They may not be quite as crispy as they are in the dehydrator, but once they’re fully dried, they will powder with ease.

At about 115 degrees F, my napa cabbage was done in four hours. It’s done when it’s crisp.

How-To

Pour fermented veg from jar into a strainer and push out as much liquid as possible. Liquid may be reserved for another use, if you like. Move strained veg to clean kitchen cloths or paper towels and pat dry. When working with kimchi, you want to remove as little paste as possible, but still, you don’t want them going on completely wet.

Space pieces evenly over the trays of the dehydrator. If they touch, they’ll stick together. It’s also a good idea to put similarly-sized pieces on the same tray. Trays with smaller pieces can be removed when they’re done, leaving the larger pieces more time to dry.

If your dehydrator has a temperature option, set it to 100°F (37.8° C) to keep the bacteria alive. If, like me, you have a dehydrator with no thermostat, turn it on.

At 115°F (the temperature at which my dehydrator runs), it will take 4 hours for the kraut and napa cabbage to reach the right level of crisp and 5 hours for the thicker pieces (daikon and pickled vegetables) to become crunchable. Once they are brittle, it’s time to grind. Working in batches, place dehydrated vegetables into the spice grinder and grind until they make a fine powder. If you get clumps, your vegetables weren’t dry enough. You can stick the remaining veg back in the dehydrator if this happens with your first grinder batch.

Once you have a powder, it’s ready to be used. Store in the spice drawer and use within a couple months for best flavor.

Daikon strips took about an hour longer than the napa cabbage in this particular recipe.

After a very short ferment, sure! I’m not sure what method you’re using to ferment whole fruit with a bug, but obviously, liquid would require a mat of some kind to avoid leakage, and longer fermented fruit becomes alcohol, and won’t have a ton of residual sweetness.

I’ve been dreaming about making fermented sausage using homemade ferments as starters. I recently read that dry-cured sausage should not even contain fresh herbs due to their water content… but this might just be perfect for it!

I was also wondering if dried sauerkraut would contain enough nitrates that I could avoid using curing salt. Does anyone know?

Hey Mike, I have only made sausage/salami a few times so I am definitely not an expert. I will tell you this, which is very contrary to my general feelings about fermented foods: approach meat fermentation with great caution. Unlike vegetable fermentation where variation and experimentation are wonderful things that loudly announce their successes and failures, meat fermentation can be dangerous. The word “botulism” is derived from the latin word for sausage (botulus) for a reason.

I would also definitely not skip the nitrates in favor of dried kraut. You won’t know the amount of nitrates in the kraut (and some evidence shows longer fermented krauts are quite low in nitrates). Sorry to be a bummer and a damper on experimentation, but meat fermentation isn’t a great area for playing around. Consider it closer to canning in that way than it is to fermentation. Follow good instructions from trusted sources only, and take restrictions very seriously.

If you’re a hardcore meat fermentation expert (which I am not) you may have more room to play around, but before doing that, gain a very, very deep understanding of the science of the process. Good luck!